Sericulture

Sericulture, or silk production, can be an important source of revenue for the village. The silk itself is produced by
silk worms. The worms are grown until they form cocoons around themselves, getting ready to metamorphose into moths. It
is the cocoon itself that is the source of the silk thread. Each cocoon is a single thread about 3,600 feet long.

Once harvested, the cocoons are boiled (a process that kills worms, of course), which allows them to be unwound and turned
into raw thread that can then be sold on the market (or woven into garments, if your villagers have this ability).

In order to make silk, you also have to grow mulberry leaves (mulberry leaves are the only thing that silk worms will eat).
These can be grown in either your paddies or dry fields. Note that mulberry leaves cannot be stored, and so your villagers
will sell any excess that you have on the market at the end of the growing season. This means that in order to make silk,
you have to grow the leaves during spring and assign workers to make silk during summer.

As with all cash crops, it is important to make sure that you are balancing production against the food crops you need to grow.
Making silk has the added complication of needing both harvesting and manufacturing work in the same season, so take extra care
to make sure that your workers are best utilised in any given season!